Geneva, Switzerland

The rest of my Fall Break was spent in Geneva, Switzerland. I had originally planned to go to Florence, Italy, but that didn’t work out, so I chose Geneva. Now I am happy that Florence didn’t happen because I probably wouldn’t have made it to Switzerland at all this year if it had. I guess I had so many other places on my list that I wanted to visit and Switzerland wasn’t one of them – but it should have been.

View of The Alps from Mount Salève

 

Riding down in the cable car from Mount Salève

View of Geneva from Mount Salève

 I went to Geneva alone, which at first I was nervous about, but it ended up being really great. It was nice being able to follow my own schedule instead of a tour groups or compromising with people. Although I am happy my friends will be here for some other big trips this year, I did enjoy the solo traveler life. J I got the opportunity to meet some really nice people from all over the world and spent one day sight-seeing with a girl I met there.

Geneva has lots to see and do: the Jet d’Eau, Mount Salève the Flower Clock, St. Peter’s Cathedral, the UN, the Red Cross, Old Town Geneva, chocolate shops, and of course the lake itself and the surrounding mountains. I was definitely busy all three of the days I spent there. One of my favorite things I did was take the cable car up to the top of Mount Salève. The view from the top looking down on Geneva is stunning. Another thing I really enjoyed was visiting the UN headquarters in Geneva. It was pretty cool to be in a building where such important decisions get made. We also got to spend some time in the old League of Nations (the precursor to the UN) which the sometimes-History teacher in me really enjoyed. I love the fact that wherever I travel, I always find something that I will be able to bring back to my classroom in the US. Of course just walking around Geneva is beautiful – the lake, the mountains, the Jet d’Eau, and Old Town are all so picturesque.

 

The Jet d'Eau

The Broken Chair outside the UN

Original League of Nations building

The emblem for the League of Nations is still on the doors in the building

 My first day in Geneva was an adjustment. Living in a small Hungarian town and fresh off a trip through some rural areas of Romania, did not prepare me for the bustling streets, diversity, and prices of Geneva. Everything in Geneva is expensive…even a basic McDonald’s meal would set you back at least $15. Geneva is also an incredibly diverse city (like most big cities in the world), but the area where I live in Hungary is not diverse at all, so it was really great to talk to people who were from outside my town and Hungary. I stayed in a hostel while I was there and met people from England, Tunisia, Spain, India (but she had been living in France for 1 year), and of course other American travelers. It was also different to be in crowds. The biggest crowd I had been in before that was the hallway at school. J

 

 

 

View of the city from the boat tour

During the archeological exploration underneath St. Peter's Cathedral part of the original floor of the original baptistery was discovered. This floor was actually heated with pipes of hot air running underneath it

Close up of the floor and the individual tiles

One of the things about Geneva that struck me the most was the many different languages spoken there. Switzerland actually has four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansh and it depends on where you are in the country what language people speak. Because Geneva borders France, people there speak French. However, everyone also speaks English. Sometimes I would be sitting next to a group of people and one minute they would be conversing in French and then they would switch to English. What really impressed me were the people doing the jobs that might not typically be associated with an ability to speak several languages, like waitressing, selling/taking tickets, security, etc because they all were multilingual as well. In fact, they could not have performed their jobs without being able to speak several languages pretty fluently. When I was in line at the UN I was behind a French couple and a Spanish family and the ticket lady switched effortlessly from French, to Spanish, then to English for me. It became very obvious to me that an incredibly small number of Americans, who do those same jobs in the US, would be able to do them in Europe because we are limited by being monolingual. Throughout my whole stay in Geneva, I was uncomfortably aware of and embarrassed by, my inability to speak another language.  It really made me wish I had taken learning French and Spanish in school a lot more seriously. However, I was proud of the fact that enough of my middle school French came back to me by the end of the trip that I could say basic pleasantries (Bonjour, Merci, Merci Beaucoup, Bonne Nuit, etc.), understand spoken numbers (important when using public transportation) and get the basic gist of what signs/information cards were saying. So often I hear my students at home say “why do I need to learn to speak another language? Everyone speaks English.” Before this trip, I never felt like I had an acceptable answer to this because it is technically pretty true. Now however, I can tell them from first-hand experience that one day they will be traveling in another country and be very grateful for that time spent in the language classroom.

 

Looking out over Lake Geneva

Shore of Lake Geneva